Its not so much a health and safety copout, its more to do with avoiding personal litigation. If a pilot has been told about birds in the vicinity, the lawyers can't bite too hard in the event of a birdstrike. And geese do fly at night in this neck of the woods. Same goes for cranes in the vicinity, runway condtions, danger area activity close by etc.
With regard to the constant update of the atis, I'm all for it, so long as the updates are necessary. However, a 10 degree change in the wind direction doesn't necessarily mean an atis update. This would entail a pilot listening to an atis message on arrival and quoting an already out of date atis letter to atc on first rt contact. The atco would then be obliged to ensure the pilot had the most up to date message, which in theory may be out of date even before it has been read..... Leave the updates as they are unless there is a significant change.